[redjpwranglergirl]

First off, let me explain the point of this thread. On "my forum" , we have a thread called "Today I......", started by a very kind, supportive person, who always has a good word for everyone, and it was a great idea. To date, it has over 12,000 replies to it. We use it to post what's going on with our lives, how we're feeling, to check up on how others are doing, to vent, and so on. Maybe something like that has a place here, maybe not. If not, it can just die away. Before I go any further, I want to thank Thelma for her last post on the "bt" thread- makes alot of sense.

My thoughts today, for what it's worth are this- It's true that people can/will get their feelings hurt in a forum or office or whatever, whether there's 10 people working/reading there or 10,000. Sometimes the whole purpose of saying/doing something is to hurt someone else, but most of the time I think it's not done on purpose- especially when what is said isn't directed at anyone or a person's name isn't specifically called. I admit that at times it might be hard to know if something is really directed at you specifically but generally if it's something that the poster openly says is THEIR opinion and is making a generalization about something, it's not directed at any one person or persons. But, when it's turned around on someone and a person is named, for their post, it really does become hurtful and even worse when it appears that others are ganging up on them. The thing with forums, unless we all post at ALL of the forums on here, we don't "know" each other. We might make an assumption about someone who doesn't post on any of our forums, by going by one post on Community Feedback or on one particular forum, without knowing how that person is on "their" forum and without knowing anything about that person or their situation.

Some more observations:
1). Sometimes people need to ask themselves before they attack someone who has differing opinion than they do, how they would feel if that was done to them. Is one person's opinion more valuable than anothers? The next time someone has an opinion different from yours and you'd like to censor these people, ask yourself how you would feel if someone tried to censor you. I'm afraid that I can't see any justification in it. If you feel that you should be able to say whatever you want, at all costs, then the same should apply to those who you disagree with.

2). We all have pain, illnesses, disabilities, and what have you. Some are worse than others, but we all have problems and things we have to deal with in our daily lives. Some of us have health problems other than what we post about on NT. Some of us also have family members with severe, life-threatening health problems that we seldom talk about on here. Some of us are "old" (I'll be 50 this year so I'm probably alot older than alot of people here), tired, cranky,etc. and it can make us crabby at times, BUT- that doesn't excuse bad behaviour and bad manners and being rude to others, plain and simple....

3). Just because you don't "see" something going on on a particular forum, whether it's bt, NT, or one of the topics on a forum, doesn't mean it doesn't exist or never happened. I have no idea what goes on on the forums I don't ever visit so why would I generalize and say that such and such never happened there? I've never "seen" Europe, but I'm sure it exists. I've never seen a panda but I'm sure it exists. I've never seen Brad Pitt but I'm sure he exists, and so on.....

4). Last but not least, this forum is, or should be, for everyone- not just the ones we agree with. If you think otherwise, ask yourself why- better yet, come on here and openly state why you think "Bob" or "Mary" isn't entitled to an opinion and shouldn't post here. Isn't a forum for everyone? We're not always going to agree with everyone else- for heaven's sake, my husband and I don't always agree with each other and we live together and love each other so I realize that thousands of people posting on a forum aren't going to always agree. As long as people think that they should be exempt from what they "demand" from others, well....I'd like to know the reasoning behind that.

*THESE ARE MY THOUGHTS AND MY THOUGHTS ONLY. NOT DIRECTED AT ANY ONE PERSON OR GROUP OF PEOPLE.